I desperately wanted to get a degree in mechanical engineering so I could go to work for an arms company (like Heckler & Kock, FN Herstal, etc.). Never happened, got an art degree instead. Then I met a guy that owns a very small firearms company, and, well, yeesh. It's a brutally hard business. He makes a good product, he has good morals and ethics, but the market is so saturated that anyone smaller than the largest arms companies are hemorrhaging money. Glad I didn't try to live my dream now.

I may not like what governments do with arms, but good goddamn, the arms themselves are neat.

My brother in law is using his engineering degree to work for various arms companies, including DARPA. His wife justifies it by saying "He only makes things for good countries like the US".

A few years ago, he, his wife, my wife, another sister in law and his kids were in a car, and he was talking about why it's justifiable to drone-strike school buses. He said "Well, there were some really bad people on those buses." I ask "What makes them bad?", and he says "You know, they make bombs, that sort of thing."

I turned to him and said "YOU make bombs. By your rationale, this car with your entire family is every bit as much a justifiable target as those school buses."

The entire car went silent, and later, my wife thanked me for not going any further.

He's the most morally-bankrupt person I've ever met, and I hate being in the same room as him. His wife isn't much better, and is the epitome of the portion of the working class that's been tricked into thinking they're better than that. She'll handwave away the fact that in her career, she's been directly responsible for firing thousands of people "for the good of the company".

I don't think anyone with an engineering degree would believe there's a hell. Neither should you.

Defense industry, law enforcement, and surveillance are all instant dealbreakers for me whenever a recruiter reaches out to me. And sadly that seems like the vast majority of positions for which recruiters are looking for candidates.

That or AI shit.

I'm so tired of the tech industry.

Instructions unclear, I work at a prosthetics company.

Not an engineer, but I have I have Asian parents, if I were an engineer and worked for a genocidal dictator, they wouldn't care, that's success anyways.

So... yea...

people value success over ethics

welcome to life

society...

Look man, making missile killing lasers is just way more interesting than building another pointless SUV to a price target.

Gods, I'm considering Job hopping and I saw Lockheed was hiring for my role, less experience, less certs, full remote, and quadruple my pay.

I had to block them on indeed and LinkedIn. I hated that I was considering it.

To quote Casually Explained:

"The only real question engineering students and new grads need to know the answer to is 'When is it ok to violate your moral principles?'

...

Exactly. It has to be at least 6 figures."

This is why I focused on graphics hardware for so long.... Then some arsehole came up with running AI on GPUs.